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Desert Storm
Previous Chapter Act 1 Asumu's target was an Arrancar who was of average build simply named "Lupin", who had been caught in the sandstorm. He wore a standardized Arrancar outfit, with it's only noticeable feature being that there was a neat-trimmed hole that exposed a small part of his abdomen and naval. He had short green hair that spread out on both sides of his head like waves, and his Hollow Mask remnant consisted of a single eye round eye piece that covered his left eye. On his hip was a sheathed katana, his Zanpakuto, which had a tear-drop shaped hilt and a green-colored handle. In his arms, he carried what appeared to be a suitcase-sized stone slab with carvings, as if made by cavemen. "I hope this crap is worth all of this trouble..." he muttered to himself as he made his way through the sandstorm. As someone who had lived in Hueco Mundo virtually all of his life, Lupin was hardly able to cope with things such as sandstorms; they were as foreign to him as any invader was. He had spent the whole day clearing the various cylinder-shaped buildings that dotted the landscape, having been sent to uncover items of potential relevance, and so the last thing he needed was to get blasted by some alien form of weather. Worse yet, even when the storm would dissipate, he would still have a hard time finding his way back to his base of operations. If he took too long to do that, his boss would come looking for him, and he would much rather find his way back to her as opposed to the former option. Both Lupin's thoughts and pace were halted when he felt something, a Spiritual presence he hadn't expected, but as soon as it registered in his mind, he dropped the slab and turned to face it. It was fortunate for him that he did so, for as he moved to face the presence, a light blue streak of energy bolted towards him, grazing his chest before slamming into the ground. Had he not turned when he did, the energy would have instead tore into his upper spine and likely killed him as a result. As a light stream of blood leaked from his chest, he fully turned to face his attacker, sword drawn. He knew from the energy signature that this was a Quincy, a strong one at that. "Heh, looks like you need to work on your aim there, buddy." he said in a chiding manner, pointing his katana towards the silhouette of his attacker, whom appeared to be pointing a large sword straight towards him. "Then again, there is a big storm plaguing this area, so I guess you can be forgiven for having such shitty sight." he continued to jab at his attacker, edging closer and closer towards him. He anticipated that the figure would try to move past him and steal the slab that he'd dropped behind him, and so he was fully prepared to twist around and blast them, but what happened next was almost the exact opposite of what he was planning. There was a flash of blue before his eyes, a flash that materialized in only a second into the shape of his attacker, Asumu Godai. He wasn't able to react in time as the masked Asumu, holding his greatsword backwards in his right hand, slammed it's pommel into Lupin's exposed gut. Spit and air shot out from Lupin's mouth as he was sent skidding backwards, his feet dragging into the sands as he tried to regain himself. This failed, however, when his heels collided with the slab he'd dropped just seconds ago, causing him to fall backwards several more feet and land on his back. Asumu then casually began to approach him, swapping the direction of his sword in his right hand as he did so. Seeing this, Lupin quickly hopped back onto his feet, gripping his sword in both hands. He'd been sent flying from a mere jab from this Quincy, and he quickly realized that this was likely a fight that he wouldn't win. Regardless, he couldn't afford to go down without a fight, especially to some Human. He gripped his katana in both hands and sprung forward, slashing down vertically upon his Quincy foe. Asumu only continued to walk forward as Lupin attacked, quickly holding up his blade horizontally towards his Arrancar attacker and placing his left palm on the blade while continuing to hold it in his right hand. Just as Lupin was a couple of feet away from him, Asumu shot both of his arms out towards him, his horizontal blade launched forward and cutting straight into Lupin's neck. The force was great enough to completely floor the Arrancar, his neck now covered in blood and his jugular now all but useless. Even with his Hierro at fully power, the pain was nigh unbearable and he most likely wouldn't survive such a blow. He'd fallen straight on top of the slab, not at all helping to cushion his fall, but he'd hoped that maybe he would be able to prevent his Quincy foe from seeing it; the last thing he needed was for the Quincy to get their hands on such an artifact. Asumu then pointed the tip of his silver sword down towards Lupin's chest, before raising it up and then bringing it down to fatally impale the helpless Arrancar. Instinct kicked in, and Lupin rolled to his right to avoid the strike, exposing the slab that he was laying on. Thankfully, Asumu was able to stop the blade from penetrating the obsidian artifact, his eyes widening upon seeing it. From what he could make out, the carvings on the slab appeared to depict a monstrous humanoid praising what looked like the moon itself. "The hell-?" His observations were interrupted when there was a flash of green light originating from his right, revealing itself to be a large green Cero fired from a recovered Lupin. Lupin's power was nothing for Asumu to be worried about, at least in his mind, and so he simply held his greatsword forward with it's tip pointed towards the sky. When the Cero made contact with the blade, it was easily split in two, and the force of the blast only stirred up more sand to be caught up in the storm that was still plaguing them. It was when the Cero had been neutralized that Asumu saw what Lupin's true plan was. Once he cleaved through the blast, he saw that his opponent had now entered a Released state, presumably having to exert more power within himself to achieve the transformation mentally, as his throat was too damaged to state it's actual command. Lupin's eyes were now both covered by circular Hollow mask fragments, and his arms were now fully replaced with large, scorpion-like claws. His now fully exposed torso had at least twelve insect legs sprouting from it and squirming about wildly. The most noticeable part of this new form was the rather large scorpion tail that extended out from his upper back and hovered above his head in a predatory manner. Without wasting a second, Lupin leaped upon Asumu with both of his pincers extended forward. Asumu raised his sword in a horizontal direction once more, both of Lupin's pincers grasping it tightly. Grinning widely, Lupin's shot his stinger towards Asumu's head, believing himself to have locked the Quincy in place now that his weapon was caught in his grasp. Asumu's head then moved to his right to avoid the strike, the stinger cutting off one of the locks on his goggles and causing it to fall from his eyes. He was then forced to close them to avoid the sand that was spurring from the intensifying storm. The attack had not finished, however, as the stinger pulled back to take aim at Asumu's head, before a green Cero started to charge from the stinger's very tip. Asumu might have had his eyes shut, but he knew well enough that he was about to get incinerated. His left hand shot up and grasped the part of the tail that was just before the stinger, and pulled it towards him and past his head, causing the Cero to blast into the ground behind him. Lupin then released his hold of Asumu's sword and used the Quincy's own tactic against him, whipping his tail behind him and thus throwing Asumu several meters behind him, as the latter had not released his grip in time. The Quincy crashed into a sand hill a small distance away, but was able to quickly stand back up to meet his Arrancar attacker on once more. Lupin had used Sonido to appear in front of Asumu once again, slashing his left pincer towards his Quincy opponent. Asumu, in return blocked it with his greatsword, but now he appeared to be vulnerable to his left side, which Lupin attacked using his right pincer. He would disprove this by activating his Blut Vene, holding up his left arm and grasping the claw with minimal effort. Before Lupin could hope to strike him with his stinger. Asumu slammed the bottom of his right boot into Lupin's chest with enough force to make blood shoot out of the Arrancar's nose and mouth. As he skidded back, he held both of his pincers forward and charged two Ceros simultaneously. It was at this point Asumu had decided that this fight had gone on long enough. His Blut Vene was swapped in place of Blut Arterie, and he reared his right arm back, holding his sword like a javelin, before hurtling it towards Lupin, who in turn fired both of his green Cero's. There was a flash of both green and blue colors, the impact of the sword and the energy blasts blowing most of the swirling sand away. However, this clash was only for a split second, as Asumu's sword cut clean through the twin beams and harpooned right into Lupin's chest. The force sent him flying straight off of his feet; there was no way he would survive such an attack. At this moment, the sandstorm was now finally starting to die down, allowing Asumu to open his eyes once more. Holding out his hand, he mentally beckoned his weapon to return to him, the silver sword flying out from the unseen distance and landing firmly back into his palm. As he swiped it to his right, forcing the blood off of it, he walked over towards the slab, partially covered in sand, and grasped it with his left hand. Since his foe was vanquished, he could inspect the carvings further, and found that not only was there a monster hovering towards the moon, as depicted, but there were several Hollow-figures on both sides of the figure, kneeling before him. "Just why are you so important to an Arrancar?" Asumu muttered to himself quietly, before tucking the slab underneath his left arm and using Hirenkyaku to leave the area once more. Whatever this was supposed to mean, the Wandenreich needed to know of it's existence. Next Chapter